The "Atlas" of Plucked Instruments Website...

Have you ever thought that it sure would be pretty cool if somebody created an online encyclopedia
of all of the world's plucked instruments like; lute, guitar, banjo and mandolin?

Well, there's no need to hope any longer...

If you're looking for information about plucked stringed instruments, (found on the internets' many web-sites) often times these other sites are showing either lots of musical instruments in general - but with only a few plucked ones, or they just have a limited number of instruments, or they only have a few specialty instruments.

However, The "Atlas" of Plucked Instruments Website [APIW] decided to try to make one encyclopedia website to incorporate all plucked /stringed instruments, (plucked chordophones), that is : of the lute, guitar, banjo and mandolin type (no harps or zithers). They wanted to limit the website to just a picture plus a short description of each instrument, (like in a bird book).

Plus, APIW will often give a link to some specialist site, where you can find much more detailed information about a particular type of instrument. Otherwise, their philosophy is that by knowing the name of the instrument it will help you with further searches on the Web. Starting (of course) with the APIW website you will [hopefully] quickly discover the further information that you are looking for.

So in general : APIW is an effort to make the Web a general source of cultural and peaceful string-instrument knowledge.

Besides this website being a kind of encyclopedia (showing all the different kinds of plucked stringed instruments of the world), it is also the best way of making the web-masters vast collection of information on music (instruments, books, LP's, CD's, etc. that they've collected over the years) useful to others, but avoiding the logistic difficulties and limitations to organize an exhibition of his own collection, (but still sharing as much knowledge as possible).

The collection can now be viewed anytime, from anywhere on the world, on this awesome website.